Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning proudly introduces an all new service for our players; Account Entitlements! These services are available now for purchase from the EA store and include the following features offered at special introductory prices:Server Transfer - $19.99 USD, this will grant you a code that can be redeemed for one server transfer for a single character. Starter Mount Pack – $8.99 USD, all characters on an account will receive a deed to obtain a mount usable at level 2 giving players a 25% speed boost and have a 100% chance to dismount upon damage.Trusty Mount Pack – $9.99 USD, all characters on an account will receive a deed to obtain your choice of a new mount usable at level 20 giving players mounts of up to 60% speed boost and have a 55% chance to dismount upon damageTrinkets of the World Pack – $4.99 USD, all characters on an account will receive two tokens to spend at the new Trophy Vendor in the capital cities. Each token can be used to purchase one of 14 different trophies.Specialized Training Pack – $9.99 USD, all characters on an account will recieve one War Tract that will allow them to immediately advance one full level when usedHerald Pet Pack – $9.99 USD, all characters on an account will be granted adoption papers to the Snotling Herald vanity pet. This pet will follow you around and give you a boost!For a list a Frequently Asked Questions, please read here!

Account entitlements are now available, so be sure to visit the EA Store today to check them out!

(Codes may only be redeemed once per account, excluding character server transfers)

If the unlimited trial is restricted to T1, then the only benefit is increased population at tier 1. I'd have thought at this point you would be trying more drastic measures like making destruction free to play till RR40, maybe super rare loot drops on cities/keeps allowing +1 RR increase over 40. Then you wouldn't have to worry about balance and you could just say Order is meant to be overpowered, they actually pay.

I will respectfully disagree with you on the benefit.

Also, why on earth would we make Destruction FTP? I'm assuming you do not know the current state of the servers.

As with any faction based MMO, the balance of power swings like a pendulum.

Seems to me that the F2P model only works if you have actual artists and developers creating stuff that people might want to buy. If you are going to go F2P you need to do it before the grim reaper has his fingers around your neck.

This sounds more like someone upstairs said, "I know! We'll go F2P! It's working for other games! DDO! AMIRITE?!". The already very demoralized skeleton crew then has the task of "proving" whether a F2P model will work for WAR.

Queue a half-hearted attempt to put together things to sell with very little artistic or development resources. Which is why they are adding very little to the store that isn't already in the game (level 1 mount and snotling are new (?)... but honestly, what they are offering probably required no resources at all - the snotling was likely sitting on someones harddrive and the level 1 horse is just data).

Queue the accountants saying, "if you bring in X it will push you into a 'less red' area. X requires absurd prices which everyone realizes are broken. So they go with prices that are as close to absurd as they think they can get, without actually being laughably absurd.

I don't see any of this stuff actually bringing in new people players. I also don't see anything that existing players are going to feel like are worth it.

I wish they had development staff so that I could tinfoilhat a theory that the producer didn't want to go F2P and was tossing this out there as a way to prove to the suits that F2P didn't make any sense for this game. Sadly, I believe that isn't the case.

Just tossing out useless microtrans stuff without making the game F2P is going to do nothing to grow accounts. It might make them a little more money in the short-term, but won't really affect the eventual demise positively or negatively. This very much looks like a way for someone to prove their assertion that F2P and microtrans aren't worth doing in WAR. Better for the game to die a slow, painful death than be proven wrong.

Didn't they say not that long ago that they were "100% NOT GOING TO F2P!!!"?

Why the hell not? It's not like they could possibly lose any more money with this steaming pile.

This may be the first step to F2P but I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't pulling an EQ2 and charging a monthly sub + cash shop items as a new business model. Lets be honest, if your still playing WAR your hardcore enough to either A. be willing to spend the money for a second account but currently have no reason to or B. be very willing to spend way over the amount of money deemed sane to continue to play if the benefits for doing so is large enough. I can bet you that a lot of these big launches in the future who have companies too proud to join LotR online and Dungeon and Dragons online will probably keep themselves afloat by milking the hardcore left.

Well I'm going by the pattern of most mmo's which having hemorrhaging players generally leave behind a hardscore sub base. EQ1, EQ2, UO, SWG etc. Hardcore players are more willing to "invest" more money into the game than the gamers who are on the brink of quitting. No mmo population truly dies, just sheds away the casual elements of it playerbase as time progresses.